I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gaming machines such as video slot machines and video poker machines. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for providing wireless communications within a gaming machine.
II. Background
Typically, utilizing a master gaming controller, a gaming machine controls various combinations of devices that allow a player to play a game on the gaming machine and also encourage game play on the gaming machine. For example, a game played on a gaming machine usually requires a player to input money or indicia of credit into the gaming machine, indicate a wager amount, and initiate a game play. These steps require the gaming machine to control input devices, such as bill validators and coin acceptors, to accept money and/or credits into the gaming machine and recognize user inputs from devices, including key pads and button pads, to determine the wager amount and initiate game play. After game play has been initiated, the gaming machine determines a game outcome, presents the game outcome to the player and may dispense an award of some type depending on the outcome of the game.
There is a wide variety of associated devices that can be connected to a gaming machine such as a slot machine or video poker machine. Some examples of these devices are player tracking units, lights, ticket printers, card readers, speakers, bill validators, ticket readers, coin acceptors, display panels, key pads, coin hoppers and button pads. Many of these devices are built into either the gaming machine cabinet or into components associated with the gaming machine such as a top box that usually sits on top of the gaming machine. These devices are typically connected to other devices, such as the master gaming controller, by wires that are organized by harnesses. Generally, the harnesses tie together groups of wires within the gaming machine in order to reduce the risk that the interior of the gaming machine will become full of tangled wires. Harnessing the wires in this manner can facilitate maintenance and repair of wires and devices because specific wires can be located more easily. For instance, if all of the wires connected to a display screen are harnessed together, then maintenance and repair personnel need only identify the appropriate group of wires to narrow down a search for a particular wire.
Traditionally, in the gaming industry, gaming machines have been relatively simple in the sense that the number of peripheral devices and the number of functions the gaming machine has been limited. Further, in operation, the functionality of gaming machines was relatively constant once the gaming machine was deployed, i.e., new peripheral devices and new gaming software were infrequently added to the gaming machine. Often, to satisfy the unique requirements of the gaming industry in regards to regulation and security, circuit boards for components, such as the backplane and the master gaming controller, have been custom built with peripheral device connections hard-wired into the boards. Further, the peripheral device connections, communication protocols used to communicate with the peripheral devices over the peripheral device connections, and software drivers used to operate the peripheral devices have also been customized varying from manufacturer to manufacturer and from peripheral device to peripheral device. For example, communication protocols used to communicate with peripheral devices are typically proprietary and vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
In recent years, in the gaming industry, the functionality of gaming machines has become increasingly complex. Further, the number of manufacturers of peripheral devices in the gaming industry has greatly increased. After deployment of a gaming machine, there is a desire to i) easily add new capabilities that are afforded by new/upgraded gaming software and new/upgraded peripheral devices from a wide variety of manufacturers and ii) easily change the combinations of internal/external peripheral devices deployed on the gaming machines.
The personal computer industry has dealt with issues relating to device compatibility and, in recent years, there has been a desire in the gaming industry to adapt technologies used in the personal computer industry to gaming. At first glance, one might think that adapting PC technologies to the gaming industry would be a simple proposition because both PCs and gaming machines employ microprocessors that control a variety of devices. However, because of such reasons as 1) the regulatory requirements that are placed upon gaming machines, 2) the harsh environment in which gaming machines operate, 3) security requirements and 4) fault tolerance requirements, adapting PC technologies to a gaming machine can be quite difficult. Further, techniques and methods for solving a problem in the PC industry, such as device compatibility and connectivity issues, might not be adequate in the gaming environment.
As described above, one important difference between PCs and gaming machines is that the security needs of the gaming industry are generally higher than the PC industry. Gaming machines typically include monetary I/O devices, such as coin dispensers, bill validators and ticket printers and computing devices that are used to govern the input and output of cash to a gaming machine. These devices have security requirements that are not typically addressed in PC connectivity architectures. Further, a fault or a weakness tolerated in a PC, such as security holes in software/hardware or frequent crashes, may not be tolerated in a gaming machine because these faults can lead to a direct loss of funds from the gaming machine, such as stolen cash, or loss of revenue when the gaming machine is not operating properly. Thus, many PC techniques and methods developed to facilitate device connectivity and device compatibility do not address the emphasis placed on security in the gaming industry.
As the number of devices packaged with the gaming machine increases, the number of wires needed to connect these devices to the gaming machine also increases. In addition, issues relating to device compatibility and to device connectivity have become increasingly more important. Although harnessing provides improved organization within a gaming machine, even harnessed wires can become densely packed within the gaming machine, thereby making it difficult to locate particular wires. Further, since the devices in a gaming machine are typically densely packed, the routing of the wires in the cabinet also becomes an issue. Densely packed wires within the machine can provide an increased risk of damage to the wires and make maintenance of the gaming machine more difficult. For instance, a wire bundle may be damaged when a device unrelated to the bundle is removed for maintenance or a new device is installed in the gaming machine. As another example, some connection points may be difficult and hard to reach in a densely packed gaming machine or the connections may be hard to make when a large number of connections are tightly packed together, such as on the backplane of the gaming machine. Accordingly, it would be desirable to reduce the number of wires and the amount of harnessing within a gaming machine, such that gaming machine devices can be manufactured, maintained, and repaired with reduced time and cost.